This is a movie review and analysis of “The LEGO Movie”.
First, before you guys start to throw bricks at my apparent bad eye for my choice of movies, I shall say that, in my own defence, that I am a TFOL (Teen-Fan-Of-Lego), and I am proud to be one! Thus I was very excited for the release of this movie, it being a great historical milestone of Lego in the film industry. Overall, I can safely say that this movie is the best I had seen in my life, even though it may seem very childish at times. Let’s continue!
==Backdrop== This is not Lego’s first full-length feature film, although it is the first full-length feature film to hit the big screen. A few years ago, Lego released “The Adventures of Clutch Powers”, but this film did not continue the storyline of it and is presented in an entirely new way. The LEGO movie makes a great historical milestone in the film industry as the first full-length feature film to hit the big screens all across the globe.
==Review Part 1 (Introduction)== The movie itself from beginning to end took 6 years to finish, and reflects the precision, accurate detailing, and all the hard work and effort that the team placed into the film. Not to mention that it all costs 60 Million bones. To cap it all up, what’s the end result? For starters, it is filled from beginning to end with eye-candy that blows FOLs (Fan-Of-Lego) minds, humorous details and plot progression that satisfies everyone’s yearning of humour, has grand large scale action sequences that placed a ‘SASTIFIED’ stamp on action lovers craving for action, and lastly this movie would be so adventurous that no adventure fan would give it a thumbs down. But putting all these aside, what exactly is this movie about?
==Review Part 2 (Synopsis)== This movie is actually a pretty common and generic storyline of an average Joe being mistaken as a very special person, and going off for an adventure. So what’s special? Well, the movie is based on Lego, and how the filmmakers blended in Lego so seamlessly and naturally with the storyline itself is remarkable and deserves praise. About the story, it depicts how an ordinary and law-abiding construction worker called Emmet lives in an orderly city, which makes him a perfect citizen. However, his orderly life was ruined when he met Wyldstyle and Virtuvius, who introduces him to ‘Master Builders’ , people with great creativity who are able to build anything out of everything. They also reveal that his city is just one of many realms of the Lego universe, which are separated by walls erected by the mechanical militia of the instruction-obsessed President Business, who is secretly know as a supervillain mastermind Lord Business, who schemes to use a legendary artifact the ‘KRAGLE’ to achieve his goal of a universe that is entirely under his control. There is also an entirely unexpected twist at the end of the movie that I feel is absolutely awesome. So…digging deeper, what does the movie represent in real life?
==Review Part 3 (Themes)== The Lego Movie actually embodies a lot of moral lessons and themes, maybe too much that I felt the ending was somewhat chessey. Some of them resonate with kids, others could cause adults to shed a tear or two. (Whoops. Almost gave away a major spoiler). The main theme of the movie is “Creativity VS Conformity”, with the protagonists (“Master Builders”) representing pure creativity as they are able to build great models with no instructions whatsoever, and the antagonists (Lord Business and his militia) represents conformity, who believes that creativity should not be allowed and everything should go according to the instructions. More would be discussed in Part 4 (Design Analysis). Moral lessons shown in the movie would be “Having confidence and believing in yourself”, who is repeated throughout the movie as Emmet loses confidence in himself as he is mistaken as a Master Builder while he is not. Another theme would be “Parenthood”, although I could not elaborate further in fear of giving away VERY MAJOR spoilers. But how do the design and presentation of the movie itself reflect the main theme?
==Review Part 4(Design Analysis)== The main theme, “Creativity VS Conformity” is repeatedly brought up in the movie, and the designs and presentation of the movie itself also reflects the theme. For example, for the creativity portion, the Master Builders secret meeting realm, Cloud Cuckoo Land, displays creativity and no restrictions by using a wide variety of bright colours and great use of weird shaped parts. Colours commonly used are hot pink, yellow, light blue etc. (DISCLAIMER: I shall bear no responsibility for a wrong list of colours as I am colour-blind). The overall look of the creativity portion is weirdly distorted buildings and shapes. When you meet in “The Dog”, a cute dog shaped building; you know that you are onto something. The conformity portion is more interesting. It represents the opposite of everything that creativity is supposed to represent by using a lot of squares and blocky shapes, with a wide use of the colours black and (blood) red. (DISCLAIMER: I shall bear no responsibility for a wrong list of colours as I am colour-blind). The blocky shapes are most prominent as the outline and shape of Emmets hometown Bricksbrug, the robots Micro-Managers, which are essentially black cube robots, and as the hairstyle of Lord Business. But, digging even deeper, what are the roots of the movie?
==Review Part 5(Concept)== The roots of the movie are (obviously) Lego construction toys. Being different than other movies, the entire environment, everything from explosions, smoke and water are made out entirely of Lego bricks! Lego, having a wide variety of themes from Sci Fi to Medieval to Town, are all consolidated into this one movie in the form of different realms. Thus, for a FOLs, this movie is filled from top to bottom with eye-candy of official sets that they (Probably) owns. Plus, these concepts are entirely original! Zooming out a little, how was the presentation?
==Review Part 6(Animation)== Many people would be confused as to whether the movie is animated, or made by stop-motion, i.e. taking many pictures of Legos and playing them all at once, creating the effect of Legos moving. Actually, this movie is totally animated, and the filmmakers had pulled it off superbly. Kudos to them. They intended the audience not able to differentiate between whether the movie was made in stop-motion or animated, as some parts really looked like stop-motion animation, although you could tell that it is animation when the characters actions are physically impossible in real life. Besides that, the animation also takes a nod towards some of the most beloved building techniques, parts and sets known to all FOLs worldwide. Some techniques incooperated seamlessly include microbuilding, forced perspective, SNOT (Studs-not-on-top), an abbreviation for sideways building and more others. AFOLs would recognise sets and themes from their childhood, and try to spot the discontinued parts out of all that are presented! The animation is really top-notch and the resemblance to real life Lego is great. But how does the entire movie sound like?
staticstaticbuzzzzzzzzzzz
==Review Part 7(Soundtracks)== They say that a movie’s soundtrack can make or break a movie. If the soundtrack is atrocious, no amount of effort made by the filmmaker can save it. I agree. For the LEGO movie, the main theme is a song called “Everything is AWESOME” and appears in several parts of the movie, and has a very catchy tune with the lyrics “Everything is awesome”. The tune itself is in G major and features a rap in the middle of the song. Another theme repeatedly used in the film is to show the romance between Emmet and Wildstyle. It is literally used so many times that it is one of the most annoying tunes in the film. It is a cheesy tune of F and C Major. Perfectly in line with the movie main creativity theme, the composer challenged the limits and came up with some interesting (as in weird) tunes. The soundtrack is also mostly made up of electronic jazz sounds, and it has its fair mix of lively and epic scores.
==Review Part 8 (Reception)== And to top it all up to convince you that this movie is a blast, the **//Los Angeles Times//** said The Lego Movie has received "nearly unanimous positive reviews". The **review aggregator** website **Rotten Tomatoes** reported a 97% “Fresh” approval rating with an average rating of 8.2/10 based on 116 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Boasting beautiful animation, a charming voice cast, laugh-a-minute gags, and a surprisingly thoughtful story, The Lego Movie is colourful fun for all ages." On **Metacritic**, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 based on reviews from critics, the film has a score of 82 based on 38 reviews, which the website lists as "universal acclaim". And like a cherry on top of icing (who doesn't like that seriously), it has made it into the top 5 best animated movies of all time!! Refer to: http://www.contactmusic.com/article/top-5-animated-films-disney-pixar-lego-movie-2014_4055883 On the negative side, Kyle Smith of the **//New York Post//** called the film "more exhausting than fun, too unsure of itself to stick with any story thread for too long."Moira MacDonald of **//The Seattle Times//**, while generally positive, found "it falls apart a bit near the end." Alonso Duralde of **//The Wrap//** said the film "will doubtless tickle young fans of the toys. It's just too bad that a movie that encourages you to think for yourself doesn't follow its own advice.” The above is credit to Wikipedia, under the ‘Critical Reception’ section. So…what are some of my final thoughts?
==Review Part 9 (Final thoughts)== To cap it all up, I would say that this movie is an unique movie as it resonates with all ages, has a bit of everything, and is made to please moviegoers everywhere. A tiny bit of criticism, however, would be that the ending was a bit too cheesy for me with a flood of moral values, but it is understandable and would undoubtly cause AFOLs to reflect upon themselves. I extremely appreciate the layout of the storyline, as it is very unique and the climax is one of the ages. This is definitely one of the best movies I had watched and I certainly recommend everyone to watch it some time. Also, me being a TFOL, I would also collect the sets that Lego released in time for the movie which features scenes of the movie recreated in Lego set form. Up next, ratings!
==Review Final Part 10 (Ratings)== Storyline: 10/10 Creativity: 10/10 Animation: 10/10 (Voice) Acting: 10/10 Overall: 10/10
Comments: This is one of the rare instances which I feel the movie deserves full marks. MORE COMMENTS TO COME SOON. THIS IS WIP. (Work-In-Progress)
Thanks for taking the (long) time for reading the review! And I hope that the sequel would be even better!
The Official Trailer (the actual trailer actually starts 30 seconds into the video... =/): http://youtu.be/t6lHm-stXdM
Credits and Sources: -Wikipedia for the critical reception -The official lego movie webpage for pictures -Brickset for links to lego movie webpages -The awesome me =P
First, before you guys start to throw bricks at my apparent bad eye for my choice of movies, I shall say that, in my own defence, that I am a TFOL (Teen-Fan-Of-Lego), and I am proud to be one! Thus I was very excited for the release of this movie, it being a great historical milestone of Lego in the film industry. Overall, I can safely say that this movie is the best I had seen in my life, even though it may seem very childish at times. Let’s continue!
==Backdrop==
This is not Lego’s first full-length feature film, although it is the first full-length feature film to hit the big screen. A few years ago, Lego released “The Adventures of Clutch Powers”, but this film did not continue the storyline of it and is presented in an entirely new way. The LEGO movie makes a great historical milestone in the film industry as the first full-length feature film to hit the big screens all across the globe.
==Review Part 1 (Introduction)==
The movie itself from beginning to end took 6 years to finish, and reflects the precision, accurate detailing, and all the hard work and effort that the team placed into the film. Not to mention that it all costs 60 Million bones. To cap it all up, what’s the end result? For starters, it is filled from beginning to end with eye-candy that blows FOLs (Fan-Of-Lego) minds, humorous details and plot progression that satisfies everyone’s yearning of humour, has grand large scale action sequences that placed a ‘SASTIFIED’ stamp on action lovers craving for action, and lastly this movie would be so adventurous that no adventure fan would give it a thumbs down. But putting all these aside, what exactly is this movie about?
==Review Part 2 (Synopsis)==
This movie is actually a pretty common and generic storyline of an average Joe being mistaken as a very special person, and going off for an adventure. So what’s special? Well, the movie is based on Lego, and how the filmmakers blended in Lego so seamlessly and naturally with the storyline itself is remarkable and deserves praise. About the story, it depicts how an ordinary and law-abiding construction worker called Emmet lives in an orderly city, which makes him a perfect citizen. However, his orderly life was ruined when he met Wyldstyle and Virtuvius, who introduces him to ‘Master Builders’ , people with great creativity who are able to build anything out of everything. They also reveal that his city is just one of many realms of the Lego universe, which are separated by walls erected by the mechanical militia of the instruction-obsessed President Business, who is secretly know as a supervillain mastermind Lord Business, who schemes to use a legendary artifact the ‘KRAGLE’ to achieve his goal of a universe that is entirely under his control. There is also an entirely unexpected twist at the end of the movie that I feel is absolutely awesome. So…digging deeper, what does the movie represent in real life?
==Review Part 3 (Themes)==
The Lego Movie actually embodies a lot of moral lessons and themes, maybe too much that I felt the ending was somewhat chessey. Some of them resonate with kids, others could cause adults to shed a tear or two. (Whoops. Almost gave away a major spoiler). The main theme of the movie is “Creativity VS Conformity”, with the protagonists (“Master Builders”) representing pure creativity as they are able to build great models with no instructions whatsoever, and the antagonists (Lord Business and his militia) represents conformity, who believes that creativity should not be allowed and everything should go according to the instructions. More would be discussed in Part 4 (Design Analysis).
Moral lessons shown in the movie would be “Having confidence and believing in yourself”, who is repeated throughout the movie as Emmet loses confidence in himself as he is mistaken as a Master Builder while he is not.
Another theme would be “Parenthood”, although I could not elaborate further in fear of giving away VERY MAJOR spoilers. But how do the design and presentation of the movie itself reflect the main theme?
==Review Part 4(Design Analysis)==
The main theme, “Creativity VS Conformity” is repeatedly brought up in the movie, and the designs and presentation of the movie itself also reflects the theme. For example, for the creativity portion, the Master Builders secret meeting realm, Cloud Cuckoo Land, displays creativity and no restrictions by using a wide variety of bright colours and great use of weird shaped parts. Colours commonly used are hot pink, yellow, light blue etc. (DISCLAIMER: I shall bear no responsibility for a wrong list of colours as I am colour-blind). The overall look of the creativity portion is weirdly distorted buildings and shapes. When you meet in “The Dog”, a cute dog shaped building; you know that you are onto something.
The conformity portion is more interesting. It represents the opposite of everything that creativity is supposed to represent by using a lot of squares and blocky shapes, with a wide use of the colours black and (blood) red. (DISCLAIMER: I shall bear no responsibility for a wrong list of colours as I am colour-blind). The blocky shapes are most prominent as the outline and shape of Emmets hometown Bricksbrug, the robots Micro-Managers, which are essentially black cube robots, and as the hairstyle of Lord Business. But, digging even deeper, what are the roots of the movie?
==Review Part 5(Concept)==
The roots of the movie are (obviously) Lego construction toys. Being different than other movies, the entire environment, everything from explosions, smoke and water are made out entirely of Lego bricks! Lego, having a wide variety of themes from Sci Fi to Medieval to Town, are all consolidated into this one movie in the form of different realms. Thus, for a FOLs, this movie is filled from top to bottom with eye-candy of official sets that they (Probably) owns. Plus, these concepts are entirely original! Zooming out a little, how was the presentation?
==Review Part 6(Animation)==
Many people would be confused as to whether the movie is animated, or made by stop-motion, i.e. taking many pictures of Legos and playing them all at once, creating the effect of Legos moving. Actually, this movie is totally animated, and the filmmakers had pulled it off superbly. Kudos to them. They intended the audience not able to differentiate between whether the movie was made in stop-motion or animated, as some parts really looked like stop-motion animation, although you could tell that it is animation when the characters actions are physically impossible in real life.
Besides that, the animation also takes a nod towards some of the most beloved building techniques, parts and sets known to all FOLs worldwide. Some techniques incooperated seamlessly include microbuilding, forced perspective, SNOT (Studs-not-on-top), an abbreviation for sideways building and more others. AFOLs would recognise sets and themes from their childhood, and try to spot the discontinued parts out of all that are presented! The animation is really top-notch and the resemblance to real life Lego is great. But how does the entire movie sound like?
staticstaticbuzzzzzzzzzzz
==Review Part 7(Soundtracks)==
They say that a movie’s soundtrack can make or break a movie. If the soundtrack is atrocious, no amount of effort made by the filmmaker can save it. I agree. For the LEGO movie, the main theme is a song called “Everything is AWESOME” and appears in several parts of the movie, and has a very catchy tune with the lyrics “Everything is awesome”. The tune itself is in G major and features a rap in the middle of the song. Another theme repeatedly used in the film is to show the romance between Emmet and Wildstyle. It is literally used so many times that it is one of the most annoying tunes in the film. It is a cheesy tune of F and C Major. Perfectly in line with the movie main creativity theme, the composer challenged the limits and came up with some interesting (as in weird) tunes. The soundtrack is also mostly made up of electronic jazz sounds, and it has its fair mix of lively and epic scores.
==Review Part 8 (Reception)==
And to top it all up to convince you that this movie is a blast, the **//Los Angeles Times//** said The Lego Movie has received "nearly unanimous positive reviews". The **review aggregator** website **Rotten Tomatoes** reported a 97% “Fresh” approval rating with an average rating of 8.2/10 based on 116 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Boasting beautiful animation, a charming voice cast, laugh-a-minute gags, and a surprisingly thoughtful story, The Lego Movie is colourful fun for all ages." On **Metacritic**, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 based on reviews from critics, the film has a score of 82 based on 38 reviews, which the website lists as "universal acclaim". And like a cherry on top of icing (who doesn't like that seriously), it has made it into the top 5 best animated movies of all time!! Refer to: http://www.contactmusic.com/article/top-5-animated-films-disney-pixar-lego-movie-2014_4055883
On the negative side, Kyle Smith of the **//New York Post//** called the film "more exhausting than fun, too unsure of itself to stick with any story thread for too long."Moira MacDonald of **//The Seattle Times//**, while generally positive, found "it falls apart a bit near the end." Alonso Duralde of **//The Wrap//** said the film "will doubtless tickle young fans of the toys. It's just too bad that a movie that encourages you to think for yourself doesn't follow its own advice.” The above is credit to Wikipedia, under the ‘Critical Reception’ section. So…what are some of my final thoughts?
==Review Part 9 (Final thoughts)==
To cap it all up, I would say that this movie is an unique movie as it resonates with all ages, has a bit of everything, and is made to please moviegoers everywhere. A tiny bit of criticism, however, would be that the ending was a bit too cheesy for me with a flood of moral values, but it is understandable and would undoubtly cause AFOLs to reflect upon themselves. I extremely appreciate the layout of the storyline, as it is very unique and the climax is one of the ages. This is definitely one of the best movies I had watched and I certainly recommend everyone to watch it some time. Also, me being a TFOL, I would also collect the sets that Lego released in time for the movie which features scenes of the movie recreated in Lego set form. Up next, ratings!
==Review Final Part 10 (Ratings)==
Storyline: 10/10
Creativity: 10/10
Animation: 10/10
(Voice) Acting: 10/10
Overall: 10/10
Comments: This is one of the rare instances which I feel the movie deserves full marks. MORE COMMENTS TO COME SOON. THIS IS WIP. (Work-In-Progress)
Thanks for taking the (long) time for reading the review! And I hope that the sequel would be even better!
The Official Trailer (the actual trailer actually starts 30 seconds into the video... =/):
http://youtu.be/t6lHm-stXdM
Credits and Sources:
-Wikipedia for the critical reception
-The official lego movie webpage for pictures
-Brickset for links to lego movie webpages
-The awesome me =P